Haven't updated all summer - so much has come and gone, passed through me like the wind. Those four months were as close to magic as I've gotten, considering I lived alone for most of them. It was a period of self-reflection, of experimentation, of relaxation, of comfort and happiness. As soon as it started, it ended, and everything was boxed up and sent back on its way. I have returned to Allendale under a different mindset, and certainly wearing different shoes (almost)

I thought out loud today that I feel like I can never balance anything correctly. For the longest time I have been trying to make up for lost time, trying to have the fun I should have been having years ago. For most of my life I've been a spectator, and it really is crushing when anxiety gets the best of you and silences your tongue without your consent. I don't know if everyone feels this way, or how I can solve it. This haunts me periodically, and I can pinpoint more or less the catalyst that started the spiral this time. The answer I've always thought lay in a clear and comfortable future, but thinking that way has led me to the hole I'm currently in.

It feels to me that speeding towards the future has caused me to completely ignore the present. The present is not happy about that, and is letting me know. Isolation is a very common thing for me. I was put off by a comment I heard last week - "I never go anywhere without someone." I almost laughed at this; I hardly go anywhere with someone. Independence is in my blood, as is moving your roots around, as are communication breakdowns. Nothing explains them though. It totally blows my mind that such specific traits and parts of my life seem to be genetically passed down. I wish I knew why, I wish I knew the real reason. Maybe I'll never find out. I don't think anybody does - they just find a reason to move along and find peace with the harsh environment we live in.

Part of all this is the fear that I'm experiencing, the fear of how the goals and hopes I had as a wide-eyed underclassman have still remained just blips on the far-off horizon. I feel like I'm being thrust into a world that I'm not comfortable with entering just yet.

rooted to the iron, yearning for the flora. as easy as they were lit, luminous lights on the dusk of spring snuffed out and smudged into glitter, spread thin into the shadows like skyward pebbles on a ghostly playground, scattered by silver linings. one by one the pebbles burst into bright neon novas, showering the dewy ground below with ashy vapors. an encompassing haze laid itself over the land, dimly illuminated by the remnants of the fallen sky. the earth was still and dormant. not a single whisper was heard through the fog. a secret lullaby floated in the air, weaving its way into existence as a soft, pristine aura that blanketed the primordial landscape with an opaque gloss on the soul of nature. 

as the dawn began to creep over the horizon, scores of eyes opened and closed, twitched and twittered. during their slumber the haze stuck to their bodies, outlining their soulcages with an ethereal glow. inside each iris was a perfect sphere of brilliant prismatic beauty, gazing out at the infant sun with a newfound sense of courage, hope, and conviction. each set of eyes made their way out of the lush undergrowth to the ripples of the beachfront. under the leaves and twigs, tiny little hearts with wise eyes told of the mystery and adventure beneath the dark, rushing currents. the time was right. a mystical wave of assurance swept through each of their hurried hearts, and all at once, the children of the stars descended into the sway of the seas. 

shrill shrieks of chill were muffled in the azure, urging the group to band tightly. eyes were frozen shut by the icy sea, protecting and cradling magic inside. deeper down, hearts were tuned to overdrive. their hurried hearts poured out thick, syrupy wonder at the vast expanse which lay at their heated fingertips, in front of their restrained retinas. 

more to come

all the synapses are charged and loaded, overcharged, silent. everything i've learned has appeared in front of me into a perfect algamation from outer space itself. i should believe in the power in my body, and harness the madness into reality. the ache is ruinous, and it is blossoming into hastily spoiling fruit. i've forgotten how this works. rusted wires and joints. sharp as a tack in magnetism, a tad dull in polarity. earlier, the fist of fate plunged down from the clouds and pinned me down; a man turned into a wriggling worm in the rain. its next options are crucial, for time is short. the options are to remain pinned, becoming one with the rocky ground, or sprouting giant wings and fangs, devouring that fist, shooting hot venom up its veins, toppling the giant above. overthrowing the titan by any means neccessary.

Undead Minion

Why does the sky bleed its colors

Why do the worms rot my brain

Why do I crave the blood of others

Why must I constantly inflict pain

Why does the gutter flood with red

Why do my joints snap and crack

Why do I tear into their heads

Why must I turn the world to black

Undead minion, slave to the beyond

Chained to misery

Frenzied zombie pawn

Death's nectar - virginal sacrifice

A hunger so colossal

Only brains will suffice

Why do the humans all keep screaming

Why do they wave their arms to the sky

Why do they pray when they should be running

I'm going to eat them alive

I'm going to suck the meat off their bones

Gnaw the bones into tiny splinters

Sharpen the splinters to drive through the throat

Of another young bloke

Who won't live to see the winter

Exctinction

Slow, brooding, nightmarish killer

Watch your step lest you become a meal

Only one remedy

Explosive symmetry

When flesh is introduced to steel

Neverending quest for cold murder

Horrific desire for eternal slumber

Slaves to the beyond

Their existence is wrong

Live purely to eat and dismember

Onslaught continues, stampeding

Ammunition rations, shrinking

Pillars of fear, surrounding

Clouding all vision, unhinging

The door to sanity's unraveling

Thrust onto the floor with force

Brutal and barbaric, one thousand fangs

Gnash with psychotic madness

Upon discovery of gaping wounds

Frantic becomes hysteric; shooting pangs

Signal the arrival of Death's kiss

Landscape obliterated

Corpses scar blackened earthwounds

Death plumes swept into the breeze

Dark fog invades empty tombs

Silver shadows silently freeze

Hope and bodies fuel the pyres

Ghastly whirls of sickly ink

Extinguished in a fragile blink

Hushed back into the great beyond

Humanity's fate, lost to the fires

Of the hellspawn

Haze

don't look now she's gathering speed

cocooned with fire and party beads

gummed to the sticky floor

directly in the path of the storm

traced by smoky vanishings

upon a beaten shore

waves and seashells search for more

to light up their skies

they must prepare so

when we arrive

our bodies will erupt into dust

ten million colors scorched by the flames

of the friends we trust

will we survive

running as fast as we can

towards those lights in the sky

maybe we'll die

i'll fall asleep on the sand

for as long as it takes

to fill up the space in your eye

destroyed a halo, deceived honest men

eroded the values i held

way back when i had dreams

my seams frayed and thin, i smiled

gladly dove in, but was spit out

ripping out the pages from my seventh-century tome

i had been shown all of my broken bones

but i couldn't feel them

flying off of a building into an art-deco painting

i started panting, i just had

to talk with you

crossed and doubled, by sleight of hand

a ripple in the master plan

a drop of salt, out in the sea

one baby bird in a thousand trees

surrounded by the coastal groves

seeded by currents, their undertows

each root a story, each leaf a light

in night's silent pulsing groove

Easter sunday. Spending it in memoriam of the blissfully ignorant childhood I once possessed. 

I can see the sadness in my mom's eyes. Suddenly I can't talk about my dad around her. Nothing is familiar anymore. I have managed to survive this year by blocking it all out, by throwing the crushing reality under the covers. I feel little to zero relationship with my dad anymore, now that all of this is unraveling. I hope I don't grow to resent him, but I can't help but see that happening. I never want to have a marriage based simply on comfort, fear, and patriarchy, and even more so, I don't want to force somebody to give up the best years of their life to a cause that is held together by withering wire. 

My sister is under my dad's thumb. She is being poisoned, mummified by materialism. This next year will further drive her further into the ground by not escaping. It really is crushing to have your entire reality shift 180 degrees. I grew up in a house of mirrors, and all of them have cracked. Times were so much simpler then. I would go to the grocery store with my mom, go to sports games with my dad. They never, ever went on dates with each other - it was always just to card club. No romance, just results.

I feel sick to my stomach, lower than detritus. I can't even bear to think how I'm going to deal with going home each weekend next month. If I lived at home this summer, I'd go insane. My childhood was almost too perfect - I was only fed that which I was prescribed. This life of gift-showering and electronic parenting was what I perceived to be normal. I forsee myself going to a counselor in the next couple years, this pain is too scarring. For the record and for posterity, my greatest fear is having a false marriage and a life masked by things, to raise children that do not know what love is, and to coast through life as an outsider to everyone, including myself. 

My grandma tells the same anecdotes every time I see her. She can barely hear, and has lived alone for 10 years. I wish I had relatives that lived in the area, I feel like my family is an ever-shrinking dot. For what its worth, I don't really have grandparents. I never saw my parents interact in positive ways, and that made me uncomfortable to the point where I've always been afraid to ask my relatives about their lives. 

I see my aunt and uncle, the people who i've visited with my family at thanksgiving and the holidays all the time growing up. Their marriage is a real one. They go out and do things, they both genuinely love each other. I've been blessed with so much, but I'd gladly trade just about anything that would ensure I would still exist and whoever my parents would be would have a marriage based on something real.

Burned into the back of my eyes is the living room scene on october 5, 2008. like a chain reaction, the tears uncorked. i instantly went into freeze mode, and being with everybody again has resurfaced those feelings. when i see that visual, my hand immediately balls into a fist, representing 22 years and exactly 6 months of life wasted. the tears recycle into burning anger, and upon the realization that i can't alter the past, they return to tears. 

with every failed relation/opportunity with a girl i have a thing for, i feel constantly prodded by a hand of fate. i try not to believe in fate, i try to believe that we all pave our own destiny, but maybe i'm thinking about it in the wrong way. maybe there is one end goal, no matter what, but we can go and do what we choose in the mean time. i need to escape this ethereal prison. i need to have proof that love exists. solid proof. not based on history, not based on fear, not based on convenience, but a true passion and desire to live for the other, and have those feelings be reciprocated entirely. i have yet to experience this, in my years of dating. steph and i were never on an even keel. in the past year, largely it has been me overcompensating for trying to recover lost time, to find that spark again. i've had new sparks many times this year, but they all fizzle. 

i am bitter. i am frustrated. i am lonely. i have nowhere to go. i am slowly becoming pessimistic. for all the waste that my parents went through, that makes me want to be with somebody and really treat them right that much more. 

firing on allllll fronts. all the good ones at least.

New music - I have a feeling that all i'm going to be listening to in the next week is Mastodon, Kylesa, Prince, Built to Spill, and Dan Deacon. I feel like I'm slipping into another metal phase, and I am feeling very positive about this. Maybe I'll have a Loud Rock show next semester?

My guitar playing has never been better. I'm writing hooks and choruses like nobody's business, and I just wrote lyrics to a song in about an hour, and I'm pretty proud of them. Here it is, working title The Silent Skies:

Seeds of promise heated hot by dawn

Wilted leaves, crackled to a crisp

Eyes frozen by passions untrue

Nothing will ever lead me back to you

 

Shades of thick blankness cement the dead

All fingers hammered with crimsoned sledge

Pooling crude, brightens my mood

No trace left to lead me back to you

 

Raw spark

Sets aflame

The Silent Skies

 

Heart-lit fuse

Ribbons of red

Phoenix arising

 

No apology no sincerity no idolatry

You crumble through my broken fingers

Asphyxiation, a metamorphosis

Hushed out into the timber

 

Tobacco plumes, grey and black

Outlined through dimensional foresight

Sealed off wounds bursting through

Lunar cycle of sin

 

Raw spark

Sets aflame

The Silent Skies

 

Corrupting muse

Inside my head

Turned toward the floor

 

Mind wiped, brain stewed

Recycled inertia all brand new

You can come closer

But there's nothing left

To bring me back to you